Speed Week: RS6 vs. SLS Black

An RS6 vs. an SLS Black? Surely some mistake. In fact, they have more in common than you’d think...

The thought that's probably striking you now is the one that struck me when we first divvied up the tests for Speed Week. RS6 vs SLS Black. They're not exactly two peas in a pod, are they? Pity the five-door estate, you're thinking, faced with the task of squaring up to one of the most fearsome track weapons ever to fight its way out of a factory. The SLS Black should be muzzled. This is going to be like a bunny facing down a fox, armed with nothing more than a softly padded paw and a pair of jaunty ears. The RS6 is going to be skinned alive...

We'll come on to how each fared at the track in due course, but I think you have an inkling of how that might pan out. So let's step back from that to start with, because as you've already read, these two didn't magically apparate at the Circuit de Charade. We drove them here across the Alps, and before that, on German 'bahns, conditions that gave us an essential grounding in what each car stands for, what it's capable of.